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At A Touch Of Class, we know that it can be laundry war trying to fold the fitted bed sheet, it’s not an easy task. Our team wants to give you a step by step process to properly fold a fitted bed sheet and in turn, become a folding master. At our San Rafael and Ross dry cleaning stores, we are the first ones to sympathize with the fact that folding laundry or linens can be difficult. We’ve had years of practice and now we want to let you in on the folding secrets!

The Parts Of The Sheet

First and foremost, let’s discuss the parts of the sheet so that we are all on the same page.

The right “head” side

The left “head” side

The right “foot” side

The left “foot” side

The main sheet

As we go through the full folding process, these terms will be important to ensure optimal folding techniques.

Make Amature Folding Look Professional

A Touch Of Class wants to give you the tools to take amature folding to the next level, and make your fitted sheet look like it was folded by a professional. Here is our easy, step-by-step process:

Start with the sheet upside down, untwisted, and as smooth as possible

Fold the sheet in half so that it is half as long. Now you should be able to see the “sides” on the top half. If not, you did something wrong and you should start over.

Fold the sheet in half again, the opposite way, keeping all the “sides” together

Place the sheet on the bed as you have folded so far

Proceed to tuck in any “sides” that are irregular or sticking out

Smooth the folded sheet by running your hand gently across the top to get rid of any wrinkles

As stated above, our team believes this is the easiest and most conducive folding technique for amature folders. As you begin to master the fitted sheet, feel free to discuss new techniques with our San Rafael and Ross dry cleaning team!

Call A Touch Of Class Today!

A Touch Of Class is your one stop shop for all laundry and dry cleaning needs. Whether you would like our professional services or would just like to pick our brains about folding techniques, we are here for you! Our family run business provides the highest quality dry cleaning services in San Rafael and Ross, CA. Please contact our stores for any of your dry cleaning needs. We look forward to hearing from you!

Grass stains. Berry juice. Ketchup. Mustard. Blood. During the summer, your clothes are susceptible to more tough stains than they are in the winter, and without the right tools, your garments may be lost for good. Fortunately, with these tips and tricks from our San Rafael dry cleaning experts, you can erase all the spills and splatters of summertime without having to toss your favorite garments.

​Grass Stains

Grass stains are tough, but they’re not unbeatable. When your kiddos come in for the night, pretreat their garments by rubbing liquid laundry or dish soap over the stains. Rinse well. If the stain persists, dab at the stain with rubbing alcohol, add a color-safe bleach and toss the garment in the wash.

Sauces

If you got another condiment stain, don’t swear off hotdogs for good—just keep this tip in your arsenal. Dab away as much of the sauce as possible, then run your shirt through cold water. Once home, dab a bit of glycerin into a mustard stain and rinse. For ketchup-stained garments, run cold water through from the underside of the shirt. For both stains, rub liquid soap to the blemish and dab at it. Launder as usual.

Sunblock

Sunblock may protect you from the sun’s rays, but it can be damaging for your garments. If sunscreen smears your favorite swimsuit or sundress, wipe away the surplus and apply a stain remover to the spot. Lauder as usual.

Berry Stains

One of the best parts about summer is the berries, yet, berry stains are some of the toughest of them all. You can remove berry juice by immediately sponging at the stain with cold water. When you get home, stretch the garment over a bowl, then pour boiling water through a strainer onto the fabric. If the mark is still there, dab at it with rubbing alcohol and then toss in the wash.

​If you still cannot get tough summer stains out, let A Touch of Class have a go. Call our San Rafael dry cleaning delivery service for effortless stain removal today.

Many couples choose the spring and summer seasons to tie the knot because of the favorable weather conditions during this time of the year. If you receive a wedding invitation or two this year, you certainly don’t want to get caught off-guard by not having anything clean and fresh to wear. That’s why it’s a good idea to take your formal clothes to your favorite San Rafael drying cleaner to make sure you have a suit or dress to wear that’s clean and pressed.

Once you’ve gotten your more formal clothes dry cleaned, you’d probably like to know how often you should dry clean the other clothing items in your wardrobe.It’s important to know that even though dry cleaning is a great way to keep your clothes in tip-top shape, not every item in your wardrobe needs to be cleaned after each wear. To help you decide when it’s time to visit your dry cleaner in the future, we’ve explained when certain types of clothing need to be professionally dry cleaned.

Business & Formal Suits

Since suits don’t come into direct contact with your skin, it’s not necessary to dry clean them each time you wear them. That being said, there are some differences between business and formal suits.

​Since business suits are worn regularly, they should be dry cleaned after four to five wears to keep them fresh and clean. Considering that more formal suits are only worn for special occasions like weddings, they should be dry cleaned once a season or after each wear.

Dresses, Pants, & Skirts

Dresses, pants, and skirts should be dry cleaned after four to five wears. However, if these items are made of a stain-repellent material, they can be worn a few more times before taking them to the dry cleaners. To keep dresses, pants, and skirts well cared for, they should be hung up and air-dried once they’ve been worn.

​Buttoned Shirts & Blouses

​Shirts and blouses with buttons are worn closely against the skin to absorb sweat. This means these items need to dry cleaned after three to four wears. Shirts or blouses made of silk should be dry-cleaned after each wear.

See Us for Ross & San Rafael Dry Cleaning

At A Touch of Class, we can help you keep your clothing in excellent condition with our professional dry cleaning service. We use a green cleaning method that’s safe for the environment, safe for you, and safe for your clothes. With two locations in Ross and San Rafael and an exceptional valet service, we make it very convenient to have your clothes dry cleaned! Just drop your clothes off at either of our locations or schedule valet service with us online. We’re looking forward to serving you!

At A Touch of Class, we're proud to provide premium-quality laundry and dry cleaning services to Marin County and all of San Francisco. We offer a professional approach to cleaning clothes, and our expert dry cleaners are trained to remove even tough stains from precious and fine clothing. Sometimes, though, the spirit of DIY moves you – and if you're wondering how to clean clothing stains at home, here are a few great household products that can help you do it.

Great Household Products for Cleaning Clothes

Need to get a stain out at home? These household cleaning products can help you keep your clothing stain-free!

White Vinegar: White vinegar is like the Swiss army knife of household products – you can use it to clean just about anything! With clothing, white vinegar acts like a bleaching agent. Pour it onto wine stains, berry stains, tomato stains, and other dark red food stains to lift the pigment and return the fabric to white. Just be careful, as it can also take the dye out of your clothing.

Bleach: Sure, you know how to put bleach in a laundry machine – but there's another way to use bleach to treat even tougher stains. Try diluting bleach with water and soaking white clothes in a bucket with the mixture. The proportions and soak time will vary based on the bleach concentration you use, so defer to the manufacturer's instructions for specifics, Used correctly, though, bleach is a highly effective tool in keeping white clothes white.

Lemon Juice: Lemon juice is another miracle substance, great for a variety of culinary and cleaning adventures. For stains caused by grass, tea, coffee, or adhesives, squeeze lemon juice onto the stain, let it saturate, then wash.

Cold Water: Often, one of the most powerful ways to fight stains is by moving fast. Applying cold water to a stain before it dries can prevent the stain from setting in and either remove the stain entirely or make it much easier to lift. Never use hot or warm water, however, as this can work to set the stain.

Get Professional Valet Dry Cleaning in San Francisco & Marin

These products can help protect your clothing from stains, but if it's a truly difficult stain or an important piece of clothing, it's always better to leave things to the professionals. At A Touch of Class, we make it our business to treat even the toughest stains while protecting the fabric of your favorite garments. Order a valet service today to see the difference that professional, eco-friendly laundry valet makes. We can’t wait to hear from you!

We all know the feeling. You're wearing your favorite outfit and feeling more confident than ever, but then disaster strikes – a stray crumb of food, drop of coffee, or speck of dirt leaves a stain! Stains are one of the most frustrating parts of caring for clothing, and removing them can prove to be a truly herculean task.

​At A Touch of Class, we're proud to offer premier laundry valet and dry cleaning services to the San Rafael community – and here are our tips for getting rid of clothing stains.

​First Aid Comes First

Often, the best way to fix a stain is to act as fast as possible. Ideally, you should bring the clothing into us for a professional cleaning as soon as possible – that provides the best chance at truly treating the stain and saving the clothing. However, as soon as you notice the stain, it's time to act. If possible, don't let the stain dry. Once a stain dries, it's much more likely for it to set into the fabric of the clothing. Apply water periodically to keep the stain wet and dilute it, making it easier to treat later on.

​Never Dry Stained Clothing

​Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that once a piece of clothing has a stain, NEVER, ever let it go into a dryer! The heat from a dryer will set the stain into the fabric, making it significantly more difficult (and often impossible) to remove. Keep stained clothing out of sunlight as much as possible, as light can break down some materials and make them harder to out.

​Leave It to the Pros

​However, the best advice we can give is to leave it to the professionals. Sometimes it's possible to get stains out of clothing on your own – but it's difficult, and "miracle" stain removers rarely live up to their promises. If it's an article of clothing that's truly important to you, your best option is to give it to us for a professional dry cleaning service. If you can tell us as much as possible about the stain, we have specialty cleaning agents and tools that let us remove tough stains and get clothing looking good as new.

​Get Professional Valet Dry Cleaning in San Rafael, CA

Your clothing deserves the best – and at A Touch of Class, we can give it the VIP treatment. Try our complimentary valet dry cleaning service today. We guarantee your clothing will look and feel better than ever – and if you act fast, we can often take out even the toughest stains!

When Christmas time rolls around and it's time to invite a Douglas Fir as your house guest, many of us breathe a sigh of relief thanks the existence of Christmas Tree Skirts. Skirts help to protect flooring and carpet, catch falling debris like pine needles, and prevent gnarly stains from things like dripping sap.

​Leave It to the Pros

However, cleaning those skirts can be difficult. At A Touch of Class, we're proud to clean virtually any kind of fabric with our dry cleaning valet service – and here's our advice with Christmas Tree Skirts.

​Ultimately, the best possible option with cleaning a Christmas Tree Skirt is to leave it to professionals. Christmas Tree Skirts can be made of a whole host of fabrics including silk, felt, cotton, wool, or any combination, and many skirts also contain beautiful embroidery and other designs that can be completely destroyed if washed the wrong way. The truth is, there is no one way to clean a Christmas Tree Skirt: it depends entirely on the material, and what's perfect for one skirt might ruin another.

​One thing is for sure, though: if you see a stain, the sooner you have it cleaned, the better. Tree sap can harden and bond with fibers over time to produce a durable stain, and the ammonia in pet urine stains can cause dyes to run and bleed into the floor beneath the skirt. While there are plenty of articles of clothing you can clean on your own, when it comes to the family Christmas Tree Skirt, your best bet is to leave it with a dry cleaner.

​Get Valet Dry Cleaning in San Rafael, CA

If you want to give your Christmas Tree Skirt a good deep clean before the holiday season hits us, we at A Touch of Class would love to help. Feel free to learn more about our professional dry cleaning services, or just reach out to us at our contact page if you have any questions. We look forward to keeping your Christmas Tree Skirt – and your entire holiday wardrobe – sparkling clean for the winter season.

Few pieces of clothing hold quite the significance that a wedding dress does. More than just a pretty dress for a special occasion, a wedding gown is a symbol the love, commitment, and relationship that you share with your partner, and it's also a reminder of the joyous occasion of the day you officially tied the knot. With all the meaning wrapped up in your wedding gown, it's critical to take great care of it – and as world class dry cleaners & clothing care experts serving the San Rafael area, we at A Touch of Class wanted to give you the best tips for caring for your wedding gown.

​Before the Big Day

​Most professionals will recommend starting to shop for a wedding gown at least 6 months before thee big day – and we second that advice. It's critical to give yourself enough time to find a design, fabric, material, and style that you like, and even then, you'll need time for any alterations. If you're using an heirloom gown from a relative, you'll need to leave ample time to have the dress professionally cleaned and altered to fit you.

After Wedding Care

​You may think that after the wedding is over, your work is done – but that couldn't be farther from the truth! Unless you're planning to toss your wedding dress, you'll need to act fast to keep it in good shape. Often, wedding gowns can accumulate stains – even invisible ones – from food, sweat, champagne, or bodily oils, and the faster you clean the stains out, the less likely they are to set in permanently. Have your wedding dress professionally cleaned as soon as possible after the wedding to ensure it lasts as long as it should.

​How to Store a Wedding Dress Long Term

​After having the dress cleaned, you'll need to store it carefully to preserve it for posterity. Our recommendation is to leave it to the pros and let us store the gown in a purpose built storage box – that's the best way to protect it from the elements and keep it looking beautiful for a lifetime. However, if you opt to store it yourself, you'll need to make sure to stuff the bodice with tissue paper to prevent wrinkling. If you plan to hang your gown, we'd recommend sewing straps to the gown waistline to prevent damage, as the weight of the dress can destroy the shoulders over time. No matter how you store it, be sure to store it in a cool, dark, dry place, and only use pure white materials to cover or stuff it – dye can transfer to the dress and ruin its color.

Professional Dry Cleaning in San Rafael, CA

Of course, if you really want the best for your wedding gown, nothing beats professional care. A Touch of Class has been serving the San Rafael area with world-class laundry, dry cleaning, and laundry valet service for years, and we'd be happy to give your wedding dress nothing less than the royal treatment. Call us today at (415) 453-8620 to find out more about our wedding dress cleaning service and make sure your dress looks dazzlingly beautiful at your wedding and for years afterwards. We can't wait to hear from you!

Summer is here – and that means sunshine, warm colors, and flowy fabrics are back in season! At A Touch of Class, our mission is to keep your wardrobe in tip top shape – and that includes selection just as much as it does professional dry cleaning & care. To help you stay in style this summer, here's our guide to the hottest summer fashionwear of 2017.

​Everybody Loves Khaki

Khaki is the great utilitarian fashion fabric: tough, perfect in casual and formal settings, and ideal for almost any type of garment. This summer, khaki is definitely in – so don't be afraid to go for a light khaki jacket, a smart pair of khaki trousers (for both men and women, mind you!), or even something a little bolder like a khaki skirt.

White Shirt Dresses

Want to put a fashion-forward spin on the classic summer sundress? Try donning a white shirtdress to take the summer in style. This is a trend we'll be seeing more of this year, and this versatile style can definitely make up a good portion of your summer wardrobe.

Stripes!

Shirts, pants, dresses, jackets, jumpers... whatever piece you want to wear, stripes are in for the season. Add some flair to your wardrobe by embodying the Nantucket spirit with some seaside stripes – it's a great way to add texture to all those summer pastels.

Care for Your Clothes with Luxury San Rafael Dry Cleaning

Of course, it doesn't matter how fashion-forward your wardrobe is: if you're not caring for your clothes, people will notice. Every piece of clothing needs different kinds of care, so if you really want to look your best in every outfit, you need an expert dry cleaner that knows how to care for each fabric individually. At A Touch of Class, that's our motto. We'll give every article of your clothing the luxury treatment, providing fabric-specific care and leaving everything squeaky clean and sparkling – and we'll even pick it up and drop it off right at your door. Want to see what makes us the best dry cleaning in San Rafael? Just schedule your laundry valet service today. Time to take summer in style!

Spring is here and summer is just around the corner, and that means it's time to break out some of our favorite sections of the wardrobe. Everyone loves a good sundress, a comfortable light button down, and to finally get to enjoy shorts weather – but to keep your clothing looking its best, you also need to take care of it the right way. At A Touch of Class, we're proud to provide valet dry cleaning delivery service throughout San Rafael, Ross, Marin County, and San Francisco, but caring for clothing goes beyond just valet dry cleaning. Here are some tips for keeping your spring & summer garments fresh, fun, and ready for the season!

How to Keep Your Spring & Summer Clothes in Great Shape

Wash Light & White Colored Clothing Separately: If you don't already wash white clothes by themselves, it's time to start. Wash your white-colored clothing in a separate load of laundry, using a detergent with a bleach alternative to keep them as bright as possible.

Rinse Your Bathing Suit: It may be tempting to just fling a wet bathing suit into the laundry bin, but the oils, sweat, and chlorine can easily set in and damage color and elasticity. Be sure to rinse your bathing suit right after use to protect it from damage before heading into the wash.

Protect from Sunlight: Part of caring for clothes means storing them well, and during the summertime, sun is a concern. When exposed to sunlight for a long period of time, clothing can fade, turning your favorite colors and hues into pale shadows of their former selves. Store clothes in dark closets and containers far from the sun, and don't be afraid to throw a sachet of lavender or cedar chips in their to protect from bugs and keep everything fresh.

Trust the Experts: Of course, if you really want your clothes cared for right, you need to leave it to the pros – and that's what we're here for. We'll pick your clothes up from your doorstep, give them luxury care and maintenance, and deliver them back to you folded, clean, and gorgeous.

Contact Your San Rafael Valet Dry Cleaning ServiceWe hope you find these tips helpful for keeping spring and summer clothes perky and pristine, and we hope they make it all the more fun to enjoy this section of your wardrobe. As premium valet dry cleaning experts serving all of Marin County and San Francisco, we know a thing or two about caring for laundry – and if you'd like your clothes in the care of experts, we'd love to help out. Call us today at (415) 453-8620, reach out to us at our contact page, or schedule a valet service online. Trust us – your wardrobe will thank you for it!

​When you’re in need of San Francisco, Marin, Ross, or San Rafael dry cleaning, we at A Touch of Class are proud to go above and beyond to meet all your desires. Not only do we provide a high-quality professional cleaning, but we’re also glad to be your valet and bring your newly-cleaned clothes directly to you. While we’re proud of our modern washing and dry cleaning process, we’d like to provide a little perspective by sharing with you a few facts on how washing and drying laundry used to be done in the not-so-modern times.

​How Laundry Was Originally Washed

​Originally, laundry was done through riverside washing. The clothes would be taken to the riverside where they would they would be soaked in. After the clothes were soaked, they were typically brought over to a washing board that was brought to the river. This washing board could be just a simple wooden board or also something more sophisticated. These boards would be used as scrubbing surfaces to help get dirt and other gunk out of the clothes. Sticks and washing bats were also helpful for beating the dirt out of them. This was a process that even the most advanced parts of the world would do until well into the 19th century. In fact, this is still the most common way to do laundry in some of the less-developed countries.

​Drying & Bleaching

​Just like with washing, drying your clothes was often a public and group activity. Many towns had a communal area of mown grass set aside that was used as a bleaching ground. Clothes were spread out on the grass and the sun would help bleach off-white clothing and dry it as well. In addition to drying your clothes on the grass, drying could also be done by spreading the clothes on bushes. Clotheslines started to be used from about the 16th century, but they didn’t acquire much popularity until at least the 18th century.

​Contact Your Ross & San Rafael Dry Cleaning Valet Today!

​If you’re in search of San Francisco, Marin, Ross, or San Rafael dry cleaning and you’re interested in the convenience of having it delivered to your door, we encourage you to try us out! You can start service through our website or by giving us a call at one of our two convenient locations. Our San Rafael phone number is (415) 453-8620 and our Ross phone number is (415) 461-3743. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions. We can’t wait to hear from you!